f another: you had to guess at what he really
meant to say. "Choo, choo, choo," he would with difficulty stammer
forth--he always began with "Choo, choo, choo"--"the scissors, the
scissors," but the scissors meant "bread." He hated my father with
all the strength that was left him: he ascribed his sufferings to my
father's curses, and called him sometimes "the butcher," and sometimes
the "jeweler." "Choo, choo, don't you dare to go to the butcher,
Wassilievna:" by this name he called his daughter. Every day he
grew more exacting: his needs increased; and how should his needs be
satisfied? where get the money? Sorrows soon make people old, but
it was painful to hear these questions from the lips of a
sixteen-year-old girl.

XIII.

I remember I happened to be present at her conversation with David by
the hedge on the day her mother died.

"Mother died this morning," first letting her dark, expressive eyes
wander around and then fall on the ground. "The cook has undertaken
to buy a cheap coffin, but she is not to be trusted: she may spend the
money in drink. You must come and look after her, David: she is afraid
of you."

"I will come," answered David: "I will see to it. And your father?"

"He cries and says, 'You'll spoil me, too!'--he means bury him. Now
he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly drew a deep sigh: "Oh, David!
David!" She drew her half-closed hand across her brow and eyes, a
gesture graceful and sad, like all her movements.

"But you must take care of yourself," said David. "You can't have
slept at all; and why cry? It won't help matters."

"I have no time to cry," answered Raissa.

"The rich can indulge themselves in the luxury of crying," said David.

Raissa started to go, but she turned back: "We are thinking of
selling the yellow shawl: you know the one that belonged to mother's
trousseau. We have been offered twelve rubles for it. I think that is
too little."

"Yes, indeed, much too little."

"We wouldn't sell it," said Raissa after a short pause, "if we didn't
need money for the funeral."

"Yes, of course, but you mustn't throw money away. These priests--it's
a shame! But wait: I'll be there. Are you going? I'll be there soon.
Good-bye, little dove!"

"Good-bye, brother, dear heart!"

"And don't cry."

"Cry? Cook or cry, one of the two."

"What! does she do the cooking?" I asked of David when Raissa had
gone. "Does she do the cooking herself?"

"You heard what she said: t